Replacing stock 300c HU with Pioneer Nav...what am I in for?
 

Hey Folks,

After owning this vehicle for a couple years, swearing i'd never upgrade anything and selling off all my previous equipment...I'm now jealous of what people have and want to make some upgrades. I'm working on a 2005 300C with navigation (no bluetooth) and as far as I can tell the following speaker package:
Boston 8 Speaker Package:
- 3 3.5 Inch speakers on the top of the dash
- 2 6x9 Inch diameter speakers in front doors.
- 2 6x9 Inch diameter speakers in rear deck.
- 1 7" Subwoofer mounted on rear deck.
- 1 380 watt amplifier in front dash directly behind headlight switch.

I'm looking to eventually add a new head unit, subs and amps and speakers last probably, but I'm hoping I can do this one piece at a time. My reqiurements are basically a doubledin HU so as to not look silly and something that has solid iPod controls. I first settled on teh Pioneer AVH-4300DVD, but after tihnkin about possibly being sad about losing nav and all the potential bluetooth features and what that would cost to add after the fact, I'm now looking at the Pioneer AVIC-Z120BT.

Any general thoughts on the choice of head unit?
When in store, I was lookin at the lower non-nav models, and I preferred Pioneers design to Kenwoods. JVC and some other brands didn't really seem to be on par. Alpine was a lil pricy. Researching online the NAV units, i definitely like what this Pioneer offers, especially the iphone/ipod integration for music/nav. Not huge on this Pandora thing as i dunno much about it.

Now the questions, what all is involved in replacing the default headunit with this one?

**Update** a little more research shows that i'll need PAC SWI-PS to keep my steering wheel controls and C2R-CHY4 to interface the wiring harnesses. Can anyone confirm this? Anything I'm missing or unsuspected costs/rude awakenings I should be aware of?

Thanks for any thoughts or comments? Plan is to go down to some of the shops tomorrow to ensure they actually carry this and i'm not buying it elsewhere ahead of time, but I also like to have the non-salesman opinions.

Thanks.

You will in fact need both that wiring harness and the pac SWI for steering wheel controls. The other thing you might wanna look into is a mounting bracket, there usually around $30 or so, unless you are planning on making something on you're own to hold it in.

Don't forget the antenna adapter.

Other than that you're good to go.

Thanks folks! Got all the parts needed and found the unit locally at a pretty solid price given that it's technically "last years" stock.

don't forget a bypass kit for the dvd/navigation or else your can't set the gps while driving